Well, sure, that’s your self-portrait today…

If you were to describe me, you might say some­thing like, “he has blue eyes, brown hair…hmm….reads a lot, likes for­eign languages…hmm….I don’t know?” None of these things are wrong, in fact they’re all cor­rect, but after this, you’d strug­gle.  Not because I inher­ently defy descrip­tion, but because it’s dif­fi­cult to describe any­one past their obvi­ous phys­i­cal appear­ance and a few basic obser­va­tions about their likes, dis­likes, and habits.

Go ahead, try it, attempt to describe any of your friends.  You’ll feel you have a sense for what they’re like, but you will find it dif­fi­cult to attach any con­crete state­ments to their var­i­ous qualities.

Now for some­thing really mind-bending: try and describe your­self, beyond your phys­i­cal appear­ance. Be hon­est, but try and be as detailed as pos­si­ble.  Not very easy, is it? And so brings us to the the­sis of this post: for all prac­ti­cal pur­poses, per­son­al­ity is a myth.

Every­one is Always Changing

I know, that’s a con­tro­ver­sial state­ment, but nec­es­sar­ily so. The rea­son it’s so dif­fi­cult to describe your friends or even your­self in any mean­ing­ful way is that peo­ple are not con­stants, they are con­stantly in flux.

What you like one day is not what you like the next.  How you act one day is not how you act the next, and how you act in three years is prob­a­bly even more dif­fer­ent. You develop bad habits and break them, you learn new skills and apply them, you treat oth­ers poorly one day, and roy­ally the next. To describe your­self as “loyal” or “unre­li­able” or “petty” or “friendly” is really just an approx­i­ma­tion — every per­son has such a range of pos­si­ble behav­iors, opin­ions, and oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth or reces­sion that words sim­ply fall short of appro­pri­ate description.

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Find out how to ignite your pas­sions and make your life a thriller.

Let me start out by stating that yes, Michael Jack­son made some bad choices in his life.  Among oth­ers, he was irre­spon­si­ble with money and endan­gered his children’s wel­fare.  How­ever, I think there is some­thing to learn from every­one, be it a pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence .  This is espe­cially true of peo­ple who are dra­mat­i­cally dif­fer­ent from your­self, peo­ple with whom you may have dif­fi­culty relating.

In these cases, empa­thy can extend you beyond your usual com­fort level, and I think these are some of the most valu­able learn­ing expe­ri­ences; they pull you far away from nor­malcy and allow you to exam­ine your beliefs from the outside.

Last night, I went to see Michael Jackson’s movie This Is It with a few friends.  The film, which high­lights his prepa­ra­tion for a final tour, was only intended for Jackson’s per­sonal archives.  After his death, his estate decided to release it as a movie to the pub­lic.  It lets the world see his prepa­ra­tion for the tour, and at least glean what he was try­ing to accom­plish. I must say this was one of the most inspi­ra­tional works I have seen in awhile, and in reflect­ing on the expe­ri­ence, I think there is some­thing for every­one to learn from this movie.

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